An African Slave

An African Slave.

“Oh! would that freedom were my lot,

How happy would I be;
Scenes of my childhood, ne’er forgot,
Soon would I visit ye.
“The chain that now hangs on my arm, 5
Badge of my hapless state,
I’d snap, although I might alarm
My tyrants by my fate.
“Around my father’s aged neck
I’d cling as when a boy; 10
My mother’s sorrow I would check,
And change her grief to joy.
“Those tiny brothers which I left,
When from my parents torn,
I of their company bereft, 15
A slave must mourn forlorn.
“My sisters too! how they will weep,
And grieve at my exile;
The thoughts of them disturb my sleep,
Till driven to my toil. 20
“But thou, my own dear loving one,
Whose heart was ever true,
That heart will now with grief be torn,
And mine is torn for you.
“Oft on the wide sea’s sandy shore 25
With thee I’ve wander’d there;
These scenes I ne’er shall visit more,
To breathe the lover’s prayer.”
So spoke the poor dejected slave,
Who on the crag-stone stood; 30
Seeing no rest but in the grave,
He plung’d into the flood.

Ye tyrant fiends! who dare usurp
Power o’er your fellow man.
You fill all earth with misery, 35
The grave you never can.
There ’tis your pow’r stops short,
You can no further go:
The tomb’s the last, but sure, retreat
From tyranny and woe. 40
Even kings must rot like common men,
And will return to clay;
And, cheek by jowl, tyrant and slave
Will by each other lay.
Ye conquerors! Whose iron heels 45
Doth bruise a people’s brow;
Your bloated forms e’er long will be,
Let him become your friend.
Sure man was form’d for nobler things
Than e’er to be a slave; 50
Or why should he, within his breast,
That noble spirit have?
Is ’t not enough that we do force
The brute for us to moil;
But must we fall upon mankind, 55
And bid them for us to toil?
Oh! when will thraldom flee our earth?
When will oppression cease?
When virtue in each heart doth dwell,
When knowledge doth increase; 60
Throwing their mantle o’er each soul,
In every land, from pole to pole.

George Markham Tweddell
Stokesley ‘Georgius’ (pen name for this poem in Tweddell's radical newspaper-  Stokesley and Cleveland Reporter c 1842 - 45
[No. 7, 01.05.1843, p. 52]
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We think this early poem of Tweddell's may have been influenced by James Montgomery (1771-1854) who George admired - read his poetry here - http://www.poemhunter.com/i/ebooks/pdf/james_montgomery_2004_9.pdf
Montgomery, although a Scot, was a campaigning reformist especially against slavery, spending much of his life in Yorkshire and was imprisoned in 1795 and 1796. James Montgomery was a British editor, hymnwriter and poet. He was particularly associated with humanitarian causes such as the campaigns to abolish slavery and to end the exploitation of child chimney sweeps. Read More here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Montgomery


Here is Montgomery's poem -

A Cry from South Africa - by James Montgomery

Africa, from her remotest strand,
Lifts to high heaven one fetter'd hand,

And to the utmost of her chain
Stretches the other o'er the main:
Then, kneeling 'midst ten thousand slaves,
Utters a cry across the waves,
Of power to reach to either pole,
And pierce, like conscience, through the soul,
Though dreary, faint, and low the sound,
Like life-blood gurgling from a wound,
As if her heart, before it broke,
Had found a human tongue, and spoke.

"Britain! not now I ask of thee
Freedom, the right of bond and free;
Let Mammon hold, while Mammon can,
The bones and blood of living man;
Let tyrants scorn, while tyrants dare,
The shrieks and writhings of despair;
An end will come — it will not wait,
Bonds, yokes, and scourges have their date,
Slavery itself must pass away,
And be a tale of yesterday.

"But now I urge a dearer claim,
And urge it by a mightier name:
Hope of the world! on thee I call,
By the great Father of us all,
By the Redeemer of our race,
And by the Spirit of all grace;
Turn not, Britannia, from my plea;
— So help Thee GOD as Thou help'st me!
Mine outcast children come to light
From darkness, and go down in night;
— A night of more mysterious gloom
Than that which wrapt them in the womb:
Oh! that the womb had been the grave
Of every being born a slave!
Oh! that the grave itself might close
The slave's unutterable woes!
But what beyond that gulf may be,
What portion in eternity,
For those who live to curse their breath,
And die without a hope in death,
I know not, and I dare not think;
Yet, while I shudder o'er the brink
Of that unfathomable deep,
Where wrath lies chain'd and judgments sleep,
To thee, thou paradise of isles!
Where mercy in full glory smiles;
Eden of lands! o'er all the rest
By blessing others doubly blest,
— To thee I lift my weeping eye;
Send me the Gospel, or I die;
The word of CHRIST's salvation give,
That I may hear his voice and live."